Scandinavian food has never been so hot. In fact, to be frank, it’s never been hot at all, unless you count the meatballs in lingonberry sauce at Ikea.

Whether it is the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo effect or the influence of the Copenhagen gastro-magnet Noma, recently voted best restaurant in the world, suddenly foodies everywhere can talk of little but Nordic cuisine.

With the exception of the aforementioned meatballs, however, and perhaps pickled herring and Daim bars, defining the food of Denmark is tricky.

To discover more, I flew to Copenhagen to meet Camilla Plum, author of nine cookery books and star of five TV series.

It is about an hour’s drive north from the capital to the farm which Plum runs with her professor husband. Disappointingly for Cluedo fans, he’s not Professor Plum, but Per Kølster, and he is a respected brewer, farm manager and academic.

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The journey takes us past a patchwork of flat fields, as if this were a continuation of Norfolk. Arriving at the deliciously unpronounceable Fuglebjerggaard Farm, one encounters a perfect mise-en-scene of bucolic entrepreneurship. Steam surges out from a café across the cobbled yard from the farmhouse as cool twentysomething hippies tote boxes of home-grown chillies and squash to the farm shop, dodging scampering kittens and lunging dogs.

Plum strides over to meet us, wiping her hands on her apron. I’ve been warned to expect a female version of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, rather than a Nigella or even a Delia. In fact, Camilla Plum, larger than life and with a less than neurotic attitude to food hygiene, has as much in common with the late, great Jennifer Paterson of Two Fat Ladies.

Like Paterson, she’s a controversial figure. YouTube seems to have more videos of Camilla-parodies than of Plum herself. But her fans include René Redzepi, chef at Noma, who buys Plum’s entire output of home-produced cider for the restaurant, and describes her as “wonderful”.

After a warm greeting, Plum marches us off on a tour of the farm, through greenhouses full of teenagers working to earn money for charity by clearing the last of the tomatoes. Plum clearly loves young people; she and Kølster have seven children between them.

Plum shows us the geese grazing under the apple trees, which she says, matter-of-factly, will be slaughtered that afternoon, and her pride and joy, a new variety of garlic that tastes of “new shoes and truffles”. Then it’s on to the beds of kale, a vegetable I had previously felt best used as cattle food. But picking a magnificent, vast, green frou-frou of kale, Plum reminds me that it is just a northern version of the rather glamorous cavolo nero.

Back in the shabby-chic farmhouse kitchen, even the cobwebs have an ethereal quality straight out of Hans Christian Andersen. Plum minces the kale finely and douses it in salt. “It is a tricky vegetable,” she declares. “You can eat it raw, or simmer it for an hour and a half: there’s nothing in between.” Massaging the kale and salt briskly together, she explains, “this makes it more mellow and softens it. You can always rinse it afterwards if it is too salty.”

Potatoes, celeriac and dill are heaped up on the zinc work-surface awaiting preparation: but no tomatoes, peppers, basil or aubergines. Have those Mediterranean imports held us northerners in thrall for too long? Plum believes they have. “You can eat potatoes, cabbage and apples every day and you’ll get through the winter in better shape than if you buy imports picked ages ago.”

René Redzepi, she says, is “a genius.” But her heart clearly lies in home cooking. “It can be just as good as restaurant food, if less spectacular.

“To feed a family so they are healthy and happy: well, that’s an achievement.”

The Scandinavian Kitchen by Camilla Plum. Published by Kyle Cathie, £25 is available from Telegraph books for £23 + £1.25 p&p. Call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk